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Logging trucks are again rumbling through town after a nearly 15-year hiatus. The Forest Service has reopened - or has plans to reopen - numerous drainages south of Eagle Ranch to logging... There are currently two active sales south of Eagle, with another in the works, said Cary Green, the White River National Forest's timber management assistant for the Eagle area. The 60-acre Beecher Gulch salvage timber sale, on Hardscrabble Mountain, sold in 2005, and about 500,000 board feet of timber is currently being harvested... A typical 2,000-square foot, single-family home requires about 27,000 board feet of framing lumber, paneling...

Federal officials on Friday were tracking 60 large, active fires that were burning more than 1 million acres, or more than 1,500 square miles, across the West. The states in the region with the most number of fires included Idaho, Nevada, and Montana, according to the Web site of the Boise-based National Interagency Fire Center, composed of various federal agencies that coordinate to battle wildfires. In Idaho, fires had burned more than 231,000 acres, or 360 square miles, the center reported. State officials toured fire camps to survey the damage -- as well as to tell federal firefighting crews here,...

The arrests could begin to close the book on one of Colorado’s enduring mysteries. At the time, the Vail firebombing was considered the costliest act of eco-terrorism in the country, causing $12 million in damage, destroying the Two Elk Lodge, a mountaintop restaurant, among other structures. "The indictment tells a story of four-and-a-half years of arson, vandalism, violence and destruction claimed to have been executed on behalf of the Animal Liberation Front or Earth Liberation Front, extremist movements known to support acts of domestic terrorism," Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said at a news conference today. Appearing with Gonzales, FBI Director...

Japan on Wednesday released a video in a bid to prove Greenpeace targeted its whaling ship in an Antarctic collision this week and accused the environmentalists of violent tactics. Japan's main whaling body put a video on its website that showed Greenpeace's Arctic Sunrise moving steadily forward before hitting the whaling ship Nisshin Maru, whose movement was impeded by another whaling vessel nearby. "It was a deliberate action to get media coverage," Japan's Institute for Cetacean Research said in a statement. "The Arctic Sunrise could have avoided this collision. Instead the skipper turned the boat into the path of the...

Greenpeace has accused the Japanese whaling vessel Nisshin Maru of deliberately ramming its boat, the Arctic Sunrise, in the Southern Ocean before steaming off at high speed. The anti-whaling activists say they tried to contact the Japanese whaling boat shortly before they clashed. Greenpeace says none of the 25 crew on board the Arctic Sunrise were hurt and the boat is still seaworthy, despite receiving some damage. However, a statement from the Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research says the Nisshin Maru was deliberately rammed by Greenpeace. Greenpeace expedition leader Shane Rattenbury says his captain tried unsuccessfully to contact the captain...

Earth Liberation Front claims no leaders or spokespeople When three buildings and four chairlifts on Vail Mountain went up in flames in October, 1998, the Earth Liberation Front, an underground environmental movement, proudly took credit for the arson. The Earth Liberation Front claims to be an underground movement with no leadership, membership or spokespeople... Anyone who commits an act of ecoterrorism or sabotage in the name of the environment is welcome to do it under the front's name... Call yourself an "elf" and you're part of the elite, invisible group. Last month, Chelsea D. Gerlach of Portland Ore. and William...

Two bear hounds have been killed and another injured by wolves while being trained in http://dnr.wi.gov/org/land/er/mammals/wolf/dogdepred2004.htm" two separate areas of northern Wisconsin this summer, triggering the state Department of Natural Resources to establish two wolf caution areas to alert individuals training bear dogs who want to reduce risk of conflict with wolves. Two hounds were killed in separate incidents when they approached what biologists believe is a wolf rendezvous area northeast of Ladysmith, where adult wolves had left their pups. In the third incident, a bear dog was injured while being trained in Lincoln County west of Merrill. Bear dog...

Next week, Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne and U.S. Interior Secretary Gale Norton are expected to sign an agreement that would place management of an estimated 500 grey wolves into state, rather than federal, hands. The agreement would give ranchers permission to eliminate wolves that harass livestock. It also would empower state wildlife managers to pick off wolf packs that make a dent in the state's deer and elk populations. The wolf's revival in Idaho started a decade ago when officials released 35 wolves into central Idaho. Their numbers have grown steadily since then. Federal rules have carefully prescribed when ranchers...

Brazil's state-owned oil company, Petrobras, says it has discovered a huge new offshore oil field off the coast of Rio de Janeiro state. The Papa-Terra field was found in the Campos Basin, which is already Brazil's most important oil-producing region. Petrobras estimates it contains at least 700 million barrels of crude - about 10% of Brazil's current reserves. The field, which is jointly operated with the US company Chevron, should start producing oil by the end of 2011. Petrobras said the oil from the Papa-Terra field was heavier than the sweet light crude favoured by international markets, but the firm...

FBI document says group's missions plagued by errors Even as the Earth Liberation Front - a shadowy group of eco-terrorists that took credit for the Vail fires of 1998 - has eluded authorities for years, newly released evidence suggests some of the group's efforts have been plagued by almost slapstick gaffes. In one case, members driving on a mission to burn down a federal research facility in western Washington stopped along the way to shoplift some needed supplies from a big box hardware store. The plan was interrupted when one of the members was arrested for stealing sponges and a...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 21 /U.S. Newswire/ -- House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi released the following statement today on the failure of Senate Republicans to invoke cloture on the Department of Defense spending bill because of a special interest provision that opened Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. Also today, the Senate passed its immoral budget by a narrow margin of 51 to 50, with Vice President Dick Cheney breaking the tie. Because Democrats forced several changes to the budget bill, it now must come back to the House to be voted on again. Pelosi will not allow approval by unanimous...

Father defends woman named in '98 Vail fires 'She's not even a vegetarian,' says dad in timber industry By Joe Garner, Rocky Mountain News December 16, 2005 SWEET HOME, Ore. - Federal authorities have the wrong woman in custody, says the father of an alleged eco-terrorist identified as a suspect in the 1998 fire bombings on Vail Mountain. The woman, Chelsea Gerlach, 28, of Portland, was named a suspect in the $12 million Vail arson case Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Eugene, Ore., during a hearing to set bail on two federal eco-terrorism charges against her in her home...